Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

[Radvic]

I would really like for both our plans to include specifics of what this means. Someone earlier (@Twofold?) suggested a policy where any experiments conducted on Hazou and Noburi get run by the party the day before, for example.

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The problem is that we don't directly control Noburi, so any contingencies are things that we'd need to communicate to him. Honestly, I'm willing to trust that Kabuto isn't about to assassinate, kidnap, or incapacitate Noburi, so then the main concerns are if he somehow turns Noburi against the party, added animosity clans will have against us, and added power he gets. I don't think we care about his personal power levels, I trust Noburi enough that I don't think we need to explicitly state he should be on guard about this, and I'm not entirely sure what more the clans would do. Mostly, I want us to come off as supporting Noburi. I think any specifics for how the party decides to handle bloodline experimentation ought to be handled in our debriefing session. I'll add a bullet point in the debreif about it.

It could be framed as a demand from Mari. We can present the idea to her so that Nobby doesn't have to lie.

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Sounds good, I'll put it in the debriefing section. It's now a team discussion which we'll (hopefully) all come to an agreement on.

Reassure her that she's important to Hazou and to the team as a whole: Not only is she an extremely competent fighter (seriously, just ask Mari what she thinks of Akane), but she holds the team together with her positivity. Without her, the team would be far less of a family than it is. And ohana means family family means no one gets left behind.

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I agree about her positivity, I'll include it on things she does well.

Challenge her to a spar once she gets better. If after 20 solid days of training she is not capable of wrecking Hazou in a fight (and maybe even challenging Mari), I'll eat my hat. And I don't even have one!

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This is probably something we can do with her after she gets better, but not something I'd mention while she's on her sickbed. In general, it seems self-esteem issues are a huge problem for us (see: Keiko, Noburi early game, Akane)

Updated plan here:

[] Action Plan: Ducks in a Row
We're a little lacking in purpose in our actions in Konoha. Let's double down on helping out Jiraiya, encourage our teammates (especailly Akane), go to a library, and continue making nice with Konoha.

Goals

1. Survive
2. Reduce stress on team
3. Make sure we're all on the same page
4. Make an explicit overall plan for our time in Konoha
5. Maintain cover and pleasantries
6. Progress plot lines (Jiraiya, Kabuto, Akane)

Methods

1. Reflect upon the day
   1. We need to be more careful about what we say: we've insulted several people (e.g. Jiraiya, our minders, Keiko, Noburi).
   2. We maybe should be more careful around the doctor: Inoue seemed suspicious of him, and she's good at this sort of thing.
2. Debriefing session
   1. Ask about if we'd like to make a tower prototype with Jiraiya for more rewards/monies/privacy (Hazou's cool with it)
   2. Discuss with Kagome things that'd make him more at ease (e.g. whittling, painting, cooking)
   3. Ask if people have good de-stressing strategies we could use (then use them).
   4. Ask for Inoue's opinion on all our interactions (since she's the best at this).
   5. Determine team policy on bloodline experimentation: we should all be on the same page (Hazou is ok with observations: primary concern is safety)
3. Next day, be nice with Team Asume -- follow up on conversations, do things they enjoy (eating, shopping, strategy games)
4. See about purchasing a pack or something to hide Noburi's barrel
5. Check up on Akane, attempt to encourage her
   1. Remind her of the good times we have
      1. Beach episode
      2. Games
      3. Sparring
   2. Remind her of the times she's done really well
      1. Compliment her construction of the towers that let us find Arikada
      2. Compliment her demolition of the zombies --> she did better than we did
      3. The times she's been positive: she's been a huge encouragement to Hazou
   3. Point out things we have to look forward to
      1. She can see her family and other friends again!
      2. We can work more closely with Leaf now.
      3. We've stopped Arikada from doing more harm in the world!
6. Go to the library for research (link to things to read)
7. Meet up with Jiraiya for rewards discussion
8. Encourage Noburi on his internship (he gets to learn from the best, cool! Still be careful though.)

Contingencies

1. Be polite to everyone
2. Follow handler's instructions to the letter (and spirit)
3. Minimize Kagome's interactions with people, be prepared to stop conflicts
4. Make sure Inoue has a colored jutsu for signaling for help
5. If combat breaks out, end update
6. If talking to Hokage, trust Inoue

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[Cariyaga]

In general, it seems self-esteem issues are a huge problem for us (see: Keiko, Noburi early game, Akane)

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Clearly the solution is for Hazou to be self-effacing and make the rest of the team look awesome by comparison. He's already got it down: He's socially inept, making Nobby look good. He's making a bunch of mistakes in his plans to make Keiko look good. He's very quickly going to be eclipsed combat-wise by Akane, which will make her look good.

On the last note, if our training plan for her went all in on taijutsu (not a good idea, especially given she just nearly died to an awareness roll) she could get up to 30 dice unboosted (against ninjutsu users) for 120 XP.

A more reasonable goal would be something like:

[] Training Plan Akane: Youth Rekindled

Dexterity 6 [12]
Taijutsu 16 [28]
Taijutsu 17 [45]
Taijutsu 18 [63]
Youthful Fist of a Mythological Beast That is Really Strong and Tough 7 [70]
Youthful Fist of a Mythological Beast That is Really Strong and Tough 8 [78]
Youthful Fist of a Mythological Beast That is Really Strong and Tough 9 [87]

Resolve 3 [93]

Awareness 10 [103]
Awareness 11 [114]
Awareness 12 [126]

 

[Radvic]

Clearly the solution is for Hazou to be self-effacing and make the rest of the team look awesome by comparison. He's already got it down: He's socially inept, making Nobby look good. He's making a bunch of mistakes in his plans to make Keiko look good. He's very quickly going to be eclipsed combat-wise by Akane, which will make her look good.

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On that note, now that we need to manage Hazou's stress levels, we'll probably need to address that. Sigh. WHY DO OUR CHARACTERS NEED TO BE CHILDREN! Can't they grow up already?
[jk] Research aging seals

[] Training Plan Akane: Youth Rekindled

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I'm unsure on this. On the one hand, hyper-specialization like this puts her solidly in the special jounin range. On the other hand, she's got a serious lack of awareness, social dice, and stealth, all of which are very important. Like, she already rolls really high for combat. Do we want to spend all that XP to make her roll even higher, or is this when we want to start addressing our team's deficiencies (especially stealth... also awareness).

 

[OliWhail]

I would vote stealth / awareness / social for Akane, since right now that seems to be what she's sad about. Maybe just enough Taijutsu to consistently beat Hazou.

 

[Radvic]

I would vote stealth / awareness / social for Akane, since right now that seems to be what she's sad about. Maybe just enough Taijutsu to consistently beat Hazou.

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Agreed. I'll note that training Awareness is probably something we can and should do in Konoha. I am currently having a hard time imaginig how that could get us in trouble.

 

[ChronOblivion]

I vote to blacklist any Mechanical Aptitude training from Akane until we have tangible evidence of the benefits that a specialization will bring us. It's been a waste, and bringing up her TacMove and Awareness is more important.

 

[Cariyaga]

I would vote stealth / awareness / social for Akane, since right now that seems to be what she's sad about. Maybe just enough Taijutsu to consistently beat Hazou.

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Leveling YF up to 9 would be sufficient for that, accompanied by the equivalent conditioning jutsu XP sinking into Strength and Stam.

So, something like this:

Resolve 3 [6]
Wits 5 [16]

Stealth 12 [28]
Stealth 13 [41]
Stealth 14 [55]
Stealth 15 [70]

Youthful Fist of a Mythological Beast That is Really Strong and Tough 7 [77]
Youthful Fist of a Mythological Beast That is Really Strong and Tough 8 [85]
Youthful Fist of a Mythological Beast That is Really Strong and Tough 9 [94]

Awareness 10 [104]
Awareness 11 [115]
Awareness 12 [127]
Awareness 13 [140]
Awareness 14 [154]
Awareness 15 [169]

(yes I realize she doesn't have THAT much XP right now)

 

[Radvic]

It's been a waste

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I mean, it got us observation towers (though there was no explicit rolling for that, so idk). But I agree that we shouldn't be investing in that right now: it hasn't helped that much, stealth and awareness definitely help.

(yes I realize she doesn't have THAT much XP right now)

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True, but if we just put Stealth and Awareness at 14 instead of 15, it works with her current XP, and begins to put her at a reasonable level.

 

[Cariyaga]

I mean, it got us observation towers (though there was no explicit rolling for that, so idk). But I agree that we shouldn't be investing in that right now: it hasn't helped that much, stealth and awareness definitely help.


True, but if we just put Stealth and Awareness at 14 instead of 15, it works with her current XP, and begins to put her at a reasonable level.

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Aye. On that note, we need to figure out some way for Hazou to scale in-combat with sealing if we are to continue investing in it (and of course we are).

 

[Radvic]

Aye. On that note, we need to figure out some way for Hazou to scale in-combat with sealing if we are to continue investing in it (and of course we are).

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More than just using explosive seals and expanding combat opportunities via things like PMYF and misterators? I'm reasonably content with how sealing has added to our personal combat ability. Unless we get sealing to a ridiculous level where we can touch people and inscribe seals on them, I don't see a way sealing can be integrated into combat beyond specific seals giving combat bonuses.

 

[Cariyaga]

More than just using explosive seals and expanding combat opportunities via things like PMYF and misterators? I'm reasonably content with how sealing has added to our personal combat ability. Unless we get sealing to a ridiculous level where we can touch people and inscribe seals on them, I don't see a way sealing can be integrated into combat beyond specific seals giving combat bonuses.

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It hasn't added to our personal combat strength at all beyond the utility of PMYF. I was thinking something to the effect of body-mounted brackets for a force wall seal modified to be centered on the object it's attached to rather than the earth. It would provide a significant amount of armor without the weight and could also be used for a force buckler.

 

[OliWhail]

force buckler.

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This would be a good application to go for if we use Frisbee of Doom for Keiko's birthday present. If we don't, then I'd rather research Damage Resistance Seals (DRS), the other half of KRS, and use that as a shield / armor if we want it.

E: We should play the welcome home song for Akane

 

[Jello_Raptor]

[X] Training Hazou : Kinetic Munitions

Make MEW walls in the following pattern in such a way that we get convenient 100kg slabs. Put those slabs in PMYF seals. Throw large slabs of rock at people.



MEW Wall B is designed to be overextended and snap. MEW Wall A will cause a secondary fracture as a falling piece of MEW Wall B hits it, in a position that splits the falling wall into pieces of the right size.

Make 5-10 of these per person on the team.

Edit: Alternately, have the falling slabs fall into force walls that will cut them. Thank @OliWhail

For granite we're talking like 2700 kg / m^3, so 100kg takes up (.33m)^3 if a cube, 1/27 of a cubic meter.

What shape do we need to make MEW B to create that volume, given two of the dimensions are constrained to be 90cm and 30cm? It's a little under 14cm. So these are long, thin rods we're dealing with. Having them break off that precisely is going to be super annoying - probably better to set up a force wall contraption to cut them. That way we can go more cube-shaped as well, for better aerodynamics.

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[X] Training Hazou : None

 

[Jello_Raptor]

So yeah, this should take literally 0 research.

No new seals, no new jutsu, nothing but some time to cast jutsu and get the sizes/distances right on the walls themselves.

 

[OliWhail]

For granite we're talking like 2700 kg / m^3, so 100kg takes up (.33m)^3 if a cube, 1/27 of a cubic meter.

What shape do we need to make MEW B to create that volume, given two of the dimensions are constrained to be 90cm and 30cm? It's a little under 14cm. So these are long, thin rods we're dealing with. Having them break off that precisely is going to be super annoying - probably better to set up a force wall contraption to cut them. That way we can go more cube-shaped as well, for better aerodynamics.

 

[Jello_Raptor]

For granite we're talking like 2700 kg / m^3, so 100kg takes up (.33m)^3 if a cube, 1/27 of a cubic meter.

What shape do we need to make MEW B to create that volume, given two of the dimensions are constrained to be 90cm and 30cm? It's a little under 14cm. So these are long, thin rods we're dealing with. Having them break off that precisely is going to be super annoying - probably better to set up a force wall contraption to cut them. That way we can go more cube-shaped as well, for better aerodynamics.

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Cool, that's better. Honestly, at 100kg we're not going to be hitting super hard with these. It'll mostly be useful as a wrecking ball for structures, or something to mess with large summons and chakra beasts.

We can use the "bouncy ball on a basketball" trick to get velocities higher than we can throw, but that requires quite a lot of coordination.

That said, given how cheap they are, I'd like to make them and have them handy in situations I've not thought of. I mean, there's going to be places where throwing a big heavy thing at velocity is a good option.

 

[OliWhail]

Also a good excuse to grab expanded storage seals off the tech tree

 

[Jello_Raptor]

Also a good excuse to grab expanded storage seals off the tech tree

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Yup, the more our seals can store, the better.

Also, if we ever develop a seal that can increase kinetic velocity of an object this starts to gets super scary.

Huh, I wonder how hard it would be to make something sufficiently bouncy that we can put a seal on.

 

[OliWhail]

Also, if we ever develop a seal that can increase kinetic velocity of an object this starts to gets super scary.

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We have that, no? Macerators expel at up to 10m/s?

E: I swear to god, I know more about this quest than I do about my classes at this point.

 

[Jello_Raptor]

We have that, no? Macerators expel at up to 10m/s?

E: I swear to god, I know more about this quest than I do about my classes at this point.

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Nope, we can throw at at least 50m/s (top real-life human throwing speed) probably closer to 100-150m/s with chakra boosting. Also a macerator ejects objects at a high speed but no specific direction, we might be able to adapt the principle but it wouldn't work out of the box.

 

[OliWhail]

top real-life human throwing speed

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I know, I've had to look up often enough for PMYF flying shenanigans

macerator ejects objects at a high speed but no specific direction

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Huh, really? I had assumed the payload was ejected normal to the surface of the seal.

Which, thinking about it, still wouldn't really help as far as increasing the impact velocity, but it would at least be a consistent place to start from.

 

[Cariyaga]

We have that, no? Macerators expel at up to 10m/s?

E: I swear to god, I know more about this quest than I do about my classes at this point.

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Insightful'd for the edit

 

[ChronOblivion]

Mini Omake: No Vacations
​

Mori Keiko, wielder of the Frozen Skein and Summoner of the Pangolin Clan, was surprisingly calm, all things considered. Sure, she was deep within the stronghold of the most powerful Hidden Village in the known world, probably under constant observation by ANBU who would decapitate her in a second if provoked, but still she was calm. Her position as the Summoner had a diplomatic weight to it, a lot more weight than her group would've otherwise received, and Jiraiya couldn't harm them or allow them to be harmed without causing serious problems for the Toads.

Today, their access to the village was restricted, so Kei couldn't refine her ranged skills or jutsu, but expanding her personal chakra stores was always a good idea, and it was quite possibly the easiest thing in the world to train. Just draw out the chakra, feed it into the stream of output from your body, let it take whatever shape if feels like (Kei's always manifested in a light breeze swirling around her), and keep the stream open until just before it drains you utterly. Sure, she was pretty defenseless during that time, but she would die one way or another if a fight broke out here in Konoha, so the point was moot.

And it was fairly relaxing, too, especially after the week she had had. Things were finally almost peaceful.

And then, through the heavily reinforced wooden walls, came a distant cry from a booming male voice.

"YYYYYOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTHHH!!!!!!"

Mori Keiko blinked once.

Pause.

Twice.

"... fuck everything."

 

[Velorien]

@Velorien @eaglejarl this stuff wasn't included in the offscreen info post, but these quotes make it sound like we have some or all of [new shoes, flowers for Akane, books for Akane]. Did we get any of it done?

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Yes to shoes and flowers, no to books (you headed straight to Akane from Kabuto's). You did not, however, actually give her the flowers (oops). Retroactive voting permitted on what kind of flowers they were.

That DEFNITELY wasn't in the plan

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The plan said "be friendly". It never gave detailed instructions such as "be good at it".

Okay, so, I totally lied and went and solved the current unspent XP totals today instead of tomorrow, including the weirdness with player plans assuming Vampiric Dew got discounts. All math can be seen on Sheet 2 of the mighty XP History Spreadsheet.

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Remind me about the Vampiric Dew discounts?

Hazou:
Total XP Earned: 1351
Total XP Spent: 1312
Current Unspent XP: 39 (um. Holy shit that's terrible? How did this happen?)

Keiko:
Total XP Earned: 1295
Total XP Spent: 1202
Current Unspent XP: 93

Noburi:
Total XP Earned: 1255
Total XP Spent: 1059
Current Unspent XP: 164.5

Akane:
Normal XP Earned: 1086
Normal XP Spent: 946?
Cond XP Earned: 38.7 or 36.2 (Waiting on QM ruling)
Cond XP Spent: 2? (Can anyone remember times she spent conditioning XP besides the chapter she got the jutsu?)
Unspent Normal XP: 140
Unspent Cond XP: 36.7 or 34.2

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Does this factor in the fact that members outside the active party (e.g. Akane in hospital) don't receive XP?

...huh, is this him referring to the Hivemind...??

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Edit: Actually, this is the process Hazō follows when giving Youth speeches, as he doesn't actually believe in the Power of Youth and his rational mind won't touch it with a barge pole. It is the fact that he can apparently come up with top-quality Youthful material merely by speaking from the heart that has earned him his place as Akane's master.

 

[Radvic]

The plan said "be friendly". It never gave detailed instructions such as "be good at it".

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Wait... we can do that? THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!

[Jk] make the world a perfect utopia
- be good at it

Edit:

You did not, however, actually give her the flowers (oops).

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Wait... so, we walked into the hospital with flowers, then went into her room... with flowers... talked to her with flowers.... then left with the flowers? We should probably sleep.